Operations and quality improvement for project businesses
Keep the margin you priced.
We find where profit leaks out of your projects after the job is won, stop it, and prove it's stopped.
For UK businesses turning over £3m–£20m that quote, specify, buy in, deliver and install.
Free. About an hour. You keep the findings. Diagnose. Engineer. Prove.
- Quote Specials described three different ways
- Order set-up Retyped into several systems
- Survey and design Remakes on site
- Changes Absorbed, not priced
- Purchasing and supplier Wrong specials, costs not recovered
- Warehouse and dispatch Missing items, return visits
- Install Site fixes nobody logs
- Invoice Delivered, never invoiced
Most leaks are the same specification, carried by hand from one stage to the next.
Read the transcript
You priced the job right. You won it. So why wasn't the margin there at the end?
In project businesses, profit rarely goes in one big failure. It leaks after the job is won. A remake on site. A return visit for a missing item. A change you absorbed. A supplier error you never charged back.
Most of it never reaches your rework log, so the real number is bigger than anyone has written down.
And that's exactly where we come in. We start on your shop floor, not in the boardroom. In three weeks, you'll know where the money's going, in pounds. We stop the bleeding within weeks, fix the few causes that really matter, and prove it in the numbers. At day thirty, you review it, and you can stop there.
We've run production lines, assembly teams and site surveys ourselves. No blame. No extra admin. No software to buy.
Keep the margin you priced. Book your free Margin Leak Review at www.curavest.co.uk.
Busy, but not making the money you should?
Your rework number is bigger than your rework log. The log sees what costs a delivery. It misses the office catches, the site fixes nobody records, the changes you absorbed and the supplier costs you never recovered.
You'll recognise:
- Return visits for missing items, sometimes several to the same job.
- Fitters fixing things on site that nobody writes down.
- “The supplier got it wrong”, when half the time it started with our own order.
- Client changes absorbed instead of priced.
- A process that lives in a few people's heads, and stops when they are busy or away.
What your rework log sees
- Remakes that cost a delivery
- Return visits that were booked
- Credit notes raised
The visible line
What it usually misses
- Errors caught in the office before dispatch
- Fitters fixing things on site, unrecorded
- Client changes absorbed instead of priced
- Supplier errors never charged back
- Work delivered but never invoiced
- Senior people’s time spent firefighting
Where margin leaks
Most leaks aren't one big failure
They're the same specification carried by hand from quote to drawing to order to van, with a chance to drop something at every handover. “Be more careful” doesn't fix that. One data path and a few deliberate checks do.
The real cause is usually information, not people. So we don't accept “operator error” or “supplier fault” as an answer, and your team tells us the truth because nobody is being hunted.
See the 12 places margin leaks → Estimate what rework costs you →
How we stop it
Contain it in weeks. Fix it in months. Prove it throughout.
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Weeks 1–3
Diagnose
Know where the money is going, in pounds, and why.
We walk the warehouse, the office and a live site, read every failure record, and group them into families by cause and cost. For each family we ask two questions: why did it happen, and why didn’t our checks catch it?
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From week 3
Contain
Stop the bleeding in weeks, not after a six-month project.
A few deliberate checks (at goods-in, at dispatch, a hold point before more work is made) and one channel for site issues, so the problem stops reaching customers while the real fix is built.
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Months 2–3
Fix
A few fixes that remove whole categories of problem.
Each change is aimed at a whole family of failures, not a single incident. Cheapest control first: a one-page specification record, a survey hold point, written supplier codes. Every check has to earn its place; nothing becomes a second system to fill in.
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Throughout
Prove
You’ll see it in the numbers, or you can stop.
Every fix has a measure and a target, and an agreed, conservative cost per incident the board believes. A short weekly update, and a review at day 30 where you decide whether to carry on.
What you get
Protected margin and deliveries you can rely on
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Protect your margin
Stop paying twice for the same job.
A pound figure for what rework really costs you, by cause, measured the same way every month.
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Deliver right first time
Complete, on time, no return visits.
Jobs leave complete, when the site is ready, and suppliers build what you meant.
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Run on system, not memory
It works when people are busy, off or gone.
Each control has an owner, a definition of done and a measure, so it survives holidays and leavers.
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Prove it
You'll see it in the numbers, or you can stop.
Every fix has a measure, a short weekly update goes to the board, and there is a review at day 30.
Our consultants
Consultants who start on the floor
We've done the jobs: production and finishing, running an assembly team, specification of access equipment and ironmongery, fire-protection surveys and remediation, quality management in manufacturing. We know what a goods-in bay, a site survey and a supplier argument look like.
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Euan Pallister Operations & Quality Improvement Consultant Production, fire protection, ironmongery and door hardware -
Karl Pallister Consultant, Quality Systems & Product Safety Quality management, cost of poor quality and building safety -
Alexandre (Alex) Beltrão Consultant, Regulation, Standards & ISO 9001 Construction products regulation, standards and ISO 9001 auditing
The result has to appear in the work
In a recent engagement with a UK specialist installer, we found where the rework money was going, by cause, in three weeks, and the board approved a containment plan from week three.
Before Curavest, the same approach doubled an assembly department's output within six months with no extra investment, ran a machine at 150% of its documented maximum with better quality, and cut quote turnaround from 150 minutes to 15 once one person owned the process.
3 weeks
to find where the rework money was going, by cause
2×
assembly output within six months, no extra investment
15 min
quote turnaround, down from 150
Who we help
Built for businesses that quote, deliver and install
£3m–£20m turnover, typically 20–150 staff. Bespoke or semi-bespoke jobs, products bought in from a few critical suppliers, your own or subcontract fitters, and customers who punish failure.
- Healthcare and laboratory furniture
- Joinery and cabinetry
- Doors, ironmongery and hardware
- Fire safety
- Shopfitting and specialist fit-out
- Offsite and modular manufacturing
- Access equipment and specialist distribution with a projects arm
- Construction products
Built on ISO 9001 principles, so it stands up to audit
The certificate is a by-product of running the business well, not the point. We use AI and our own quality platform, Doctilla, to speed up the analysis and keep progress visible. You never need to buy software to work with us.
Find out what your rework really costs.
Book a free Margin Leak Review. Bring a sample of your rework, remedial or credit-note records, and we'll show you where the money is going.
Free. About an hour. You keep the findings.